And thus they lead a quiet life During their princely raigne, 110 And in a tombe were buried both, As writers shew us plaine. The lords they tooke it grievously, The ladies tooke it heavily, The commons cryed pittiously, 115 Their death to them was pain. Their fame did sound so passingly, That it did pierce the starry sky, And throughout all the world did flye To every princes realme. 120 48, espied. THE SPANISH LADY'S LOVE. From _The Garland of Good-Will_, as reprinted by the Percy Society, xxx. 125. Other copies, slightly different, in _A Collection of Old Ballads_, ii. 191, and in Percy's _Reliques_, ii. 246. Percy conjectures that this ballad "took its rise from one of those descents made on the Spanish coasts in the time of Queen Elizabeth." The weight of tradition is decidedly, perhaps entirely, in favor of the hero's having been one of Essex's comrades in the Cadiz expedition, but _which_ of his gallant captains achieved the double conquest of the Spanish Lady is by no means satisfactorily determined. Among the candidates put forth are Sir Richard Levison of Trentham, Staffordshire, Sir John Popham of Littlecot, Wilts, Sir Urias Legh of Adlington, Cheshire, and Sir John Bolle of Thorpe Hall, Lincolnshire. The right of the last to this distinction has been recently warmly contended for, and, as is usual in similar cases, strong circumstantial evidence is urged in his favor. The reader will judge for himself of its probable authenticity. "On Sir John Bolle's departure from Cadiz," it is said, "the Spanish Lady sent as presents to his wife a profusion of jewels and other valuables, among which was her portrait drawn in green; plate, money, and other treasures." Some of these articles are maintained to be still in possession of the family, and also a portrait of Sir John, drawn in 1596, at the age of thirty-six, in which he wears the gold chain given him by his enamored prisoner. See _The Times_ newspaper of April 30 and May 1, 1846, (the latter article cited in _Notes and Queries_, ix. 573,) and the _Quarterly Review_, Sept. 1846, Art. III. The literary merits of the ballad are also considered in the _Edinburgh Review_, of April, 1846. Shenstone has essayed in his _Moral Tale of Love and Honour_ to bring out "the Spanish Ladye and her Knight in less grovelling accents than the simple guise of ancient record," while Wordsworth, in a more reverential spirit, has taken this noble old romance as the model of his _Armenian Lady's Love_. Will you hear a Spanish lady, How she woo'd an English man? Garments gay as rich as may be, Decked with jewels, had she on; Of a comely countenance and grace was she, 5 And by birth and parentage of high degree.